Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux and Frank Thomas are the first trio of first-ballot Hall of Famers since George Brett, Nolan Ryan and Robin Yount in 1999. But aside from that, there is no overarching theme to the 2014 Cooperstown class, a sign of just how difficult the voting process is to get a handle on.

Glavine and Maddux were 300-game winners. Thomas is in the 500-homer club. A great year for the mythic numbers of the game? Well, Craig Biggio missed out by two votes, and we know that statistical plateaus have been obscured by the steroid era, with Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa all falling short of election again — and Rafael Palmeiro dropping off the ballot altogether after he got only 4.4 percent of the votes, shy of the 5 percent requirement to be eligible for election next year.

Maddux was third among this year’s candidates in career WAR, behind only Bonds and Clemens. Glavine was fifth and Thomas was eighth. A victory for advanced stats? Not quite. Mike Mussina had a WAR edge over Glavine despite pitching in 145 fewer career games, and Curt Schilling and Jeff Bagwell had higher WAR figures for their careers than Thomas. Mussina got 20.3 percent of the vote, Schilling 29.2 and Bagwell 54.3.

Jack Morris, the standard-bearer for the old-school crew, saw his vote percentage slip from 67.7 to 61.5 in his final year of eligibility. Tim Raines, the sabermetric crowd’s 1980s favorite, went from 52.2 percent to 46.1.

Trying to affix labels like that is a mistake, because there are no voting blocs, no grand debates, no campaign platforms — only 571 voters who have been members of the Baseball Writers Association for 10 years. Each voter has his or her own personal opinions, and while the statistics of each player are concrete figures, checking off names on the ballot is a highly subjective process. For instance, would anyone argue the point that performance-enhancing drugs are the only thing keeping Bonds and Clemens out of Cooperstown? So, why is it that Clemens got 202 votes, but Bonds only 198? How could anyone say yes to one, but no to the other? Because Bonds was convicted of obstruction of justice and Clemens was acquitted of perjury charges? That’s a hypertechnical reading of the Hall’s character clause if there ever was one.

Instead of trying to decipher the indecipherable, better to celebrate the careers of three very deserving new Hall of Famers, who will join Bobby Cox, Tony La Russa and Joe Torre — elected last month by the Expansion Era Committee — for an induction weekend that should be infinitely more fun than last year’s enshrinement of Hank O’Day, Jacob Ruppert and Deacon White, all of whom died during the Great Depression.

Maddux, who got the highest percentage of this year’s BBWAA vote at 97.2, is the headliner of the class because his career is in a class by itself — he is the only pitcher in history with at least 300 wins (355), 3,000 strikeouts (3,371), and fewer than 1,300 walks (999). Maddux was the first pitcher to win four straight Cy Young Awards, a feat later matched by future Hall of Famer Randy Johnson, and from 1994 to the end of his career, he issued only 492 walks in 496 starts. Maddux also won 18 Gold Gloves, the most of any player in history.

Glavine won the Cy Young twice, and while the 1990s Braves were chided for coming away with only one World Series title, the southpaw did some of his best work in the Fall Classic, with a 0.909 WHIP in eight starts that included three complete games. Since the start of divisional play in 1969, the only other pitchers to go the distance three times in the World Series are Morris and Dave McNally. The resume that Glavine put together in the regular season is the reason that he is in, and Morris is not.

Thomas is the first Hall of Famer who played the majority of his games as a designated hitter, and could he ever hit. Five times, he hit 40 or more home runs, and he missed by two homers when the 1994 strike prematurely ended the season. The Big Hurt also led the American League in on-base percentage four times, and in an era where strikeouts became not just acceptable for power hitters, but expected, Thomas had only three 100-K seasons. From his debut through 2000, Thomas had a 1.018 OPS and a .321 batting average. Thomas suffered a torn triceps in 2001, and while he was set for a decline at the age of 33, that year is a clear demarcation in his career — from then on, thomas hit .276/.376/.507 with 177 home runs, which still is excellent and includes a fourth-place finish in the 2006 MVP vote, but also serves as a reminder of what could have been an even more lofty final mark on the game.

All of this year’s inductees are worthy, and it’s hard to believe that Biggio, Bagwell, and Mike Piazza won’t all have their day eventually, after getting votes from more than half the electorate. Just don’t expect the reasoning for why or when to be clear from 571 distinct and disparate voters’ voices.